1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to improved electronic commerce, and in particular, to a computer implemented method for measuring and managing the experience of using an online service. More particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for measuring the subjective experience of a user using an online service.
2. Description of the Related Art
The amount of trade conducted through online service events has grown extraordinarily with widespread use of the Internet. Almost all big retailers have some online presence and a user can go online to purchase anything from books or groceries, to expensive items like cars or real estate from the privacy of the consumer's home.
One of the problems with an online service event is that the service provider's physical presence is removed from the consumer and it can be difficult to obtain a subjective measure of a consumer's satisfaction during the online service event. The subjective measurement is a quality of consumer's experience of how a consumer feels about an online service event they are performing or have just performed, such as a voice call, or purchasing goods or services.
Collecting subjective measures from a consumer is usually done using some method of a user survey after the service is completed, for example, selecting a satisfaction value of between one (1) and five (5) following the completion of a purchase. The problem with this approach is that many consumers do not participate in surveys and if a consumer had experienced an unacceptable service event, such as a poor response time while executing a transaction, often the user will just quit and never complete the online service event or answer a survey to help the retailer avoid problems in the future. For example, by assigning more resources to the user transaction, without understanding that the user experience is poor, the service will not know that such changes are warranted.